


so out of tune with you

by SharkEnthusiast



Series: dark attic of lilies, bed of the moon [3]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: (the holy trinity), Break Up, Cars, Dean Winchester is Bad at Feelings, Dean Winchester is Loved, F/M, Gen, POV Jo Harvelle, Past Jo Harvelle/Dean Winchester, cassette tapes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-03
Updated: 2020-08-03
Packaged: 2021-03-06 07:00:28
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,127
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25689220
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SharkEnthusiast/pseuds/SharkEnthusiast
Summary: Sam gets buried next to Jessica in Palo Alto because he never told anyone about his family except the girl who's in the ground next to him.
Relationships: Ash & Dean Winchester, Ash & Jo Harvelle, Dean Winchester & Sam Winchester, Ellen Harvelle & Dean Winchester, Ellen Harvelle & Jo Harvelle, Jo Harvelle/Dean Winchester
Series: dark attic of lilies, bed of the moon [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1826314
Kudos: 23





	so out of tune with you

Sam gets buried next to Jessica in Palo Alto because he never told anyone about his family except the girl who's in the ground next to him. 

They leave halfway through the funeral, and Dean punches the wall of the church. He does not cry, not even with blood dripping off his knuckles, not even when hours and days pass.

Jo offers to take him up to the roadhouse to meet her mom, and he lets her hold his hand as he drives. Lets her clean his fist with a cool towel and wrap it with ace bandages. He does not cry, does not speak, and Jo watches. She doesn’t know how to act with him, not anymore. Not after this. 

She squeezes his hand when his knuckles get white on the steering wheel, when his eyes get unfocused. She finds diners and motels for them, lets him hold her tight. 

“We don’t have to go,” she says, 3 minutes outside of the California border. “We could find a place somewhere on the way.” 

“Nah,” Dean says back, peels his hand off of hers. “Your mom’s is good.”

“Stop in Reno?” she asks, and he shakes his head. “You sure? My mom’s kinda scary- you know- intense, and Ash is straight up batshit sometimes.” 

“Good,” He tells her, and his eyes are sad, and Jo knows he’s remembering something. “I need a distraction.” She studies his face, the panes of his jaw, nose, lips. Searches for something to make it all okay. 

Sam is dead. They were 8 minutes too late.

“It wasn’t your fault,” she tells him.

Dean laughs, and it’s something bitter, stained. Jo shakes her head. 

“It wasn’t your fault, Dean. How were you supposed to know?”

“Jo,” he barks, made of anger.

“It wasn’t your fault. You were already speeding, it’s not like you could’ve gone faster.”

“Jo,” he says, pleading, fingers tight on the wheel.

“It’s okay,” she whispers, and turns away as he cries. 

Just outside of Nebraska, he buys her a car in a shitty little dealership. It’s cherry red, scratched to all hell, dirt crusted around the hubcaps, but Dean tells her it’s a good car and that she won’t find another this cheap, so she lets him.

“1965 mustang,” he tells her. “One hell of a car.” 

She shrugs, grips the keys tightly in her palm. She wonders what her mom’ll think when she pulls up in a muscle car, wonders for the first time how mom’ll react to Jo bringing home an angry boy after ditching her for the better part of the month. 

“I’ll need to fix it up,” he says, peering over the engine, examining the paint job. “But it’ll last us the 2 hours to your mom’s.” 

“Okay,” she says back, and holds the keys tighter. 

They drive the last leg of the trip separately, and Dean gives her a tape to play on the way. 

“It was Sammy’s,” he tells her, tossing it into the passenger seat from where he’s leaning in through the window. All casual.

“What?” Jo asks, stares up at him, pauses fiddling with the keys.

“I found it in his Honda Civic.” He laughs, and it is a bitter, angry thing. 

“I can’t take this,” she says, leans over to grab it and shove it back at him. 

“Jo.”

“I didn’t even know him.”

“Just-” he starts, pushing the cassette back towards her. “Just tell me if it’s any good.”

She listens to it all the way through. 

In the end, she ends up keeping it. 

Jo brings him home, her mom screams at her for 2 hours straight, and Dean waits in the car fiddling with his necklace, eyebrows drawn. Her mom eventually lets him in, greets him with a stern smile. Dean puts out a hand for her to shake, looking sorrowful and tired, and Jo swears to god that she can see the moment her mother melts a little bit. She takes a liking to him, lets him stay in the spare room, gives him Jo’s dad's old boots cause his are worn all the way down. Whenever Dean picks fights with Ed or any of the other boys, whenever he sits out back all by himself, Ellen sends Jo in to check in on him. 

He’s out back again, and this time it’s raining, so Jo brings an umbrella. 

“Didn’t peg you for one of the chicks who hate getting wet,” he says, and his mouth is a resentful, twisted line. His hair’s all plastered to his forehead, empty beer bottle by his feet. 

“Jackass,” she tells him, stands closer to shelter him from the rain. “Come inside.”

He’s silent, and so she pulls up her own chair and sits down even if it gets her ass all wet. She shivers once, closes the umbrella, lets the rain soak through her hair and the shoulders of her jacket. 

“Ash found anything yet?” Dean asks, voice gruff. They gave Ash the task of searching John Winchester a little over a week ago, and all they got was a whole lot of deactivated credit cards and a sighting in Stanford. 

“No.” The rain is coming down harder now, running down her face, drenching her jeans. 

Dean remains silent, and Jo scoots her chair closer. 

“You know, my dad built me a tree house in those woods,” she says, gesturing vaguely to the tree line. “When I was 8. It’s fallen down by now. I can’t even remember if he finished it.”

Dean doesn’t respond, just picks up the beer bottle, stands up. Jo can hear his joints crack, and he turns to look at her, hands by his sides. 

“I’m leaving tomorrow.”

“What?” 

“There’s a job I caught wind of in Colorado.” 

“What?” she asks again, then springs up. “You can’t just _leave_ , Dean!”

Her mother always did say that Jo’s got a temper, a short fuse. And she’s right, cause the idea of Dean leaving like this makes her fists clench and face all hot. 

“People are dying,” he says, face held carefully blank. 

“You can’t,” she spits, louder now. “It’s only been 3 weeks. We’re still looking for your dad.”

He shrugs. 

“I gotta go.”

“Let me come with you.”

“Jo,” Dean whispers, and the rain keeps coming. He takes a step forward, and Jo wants to reach out and grab him by his shoulders, shake some sense into him. She doesn’t, and raindrops streak down the bridge of her nose, cling to her lashes. He reaches out to touch her, but she smacks his hand away. 

“I can do it,” she promises. 

He leaves the next morning before the sun comes up, doesn’t even say goodbye. 

Jo, in the end, fixes the car herself. 

**Author's Note:**

> I had a such a hard time writing this that it might end up being the last installation as I have little to no motivation to complete the last work.


End file.
